By resolving objections in the prior art, provided are a novel copolymer
suitable as a coating polymers which is excellent in adhesion to a
substrate and can be used suitably as the polymer for the coating film
having durability against pattern collapse in the finer pattern formation
for progressed lithography technology and a method for producing the
copolymer, as well as a novel thiol compound useful as a chain transfer
agent in the production of the copolymer. The novel thiol compound of the
present invention has the structure represented by the formula (1);
##STR00001## wherein R.sup.1 is a bivalent substituent selected from
linear, branched or cyclic saturated hydrocarbon having 1 to 15 carbon
atoms.